Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,66

the beneficiary. So why were his guards still following her orders, if their bindings actually belonged to me? Because they hadn’t been formally introduced to the true heir? Because the will hadn’t yet been properly executed? Because I hadn’t claimed my inheritance?

Whatever the reason, Julia couldn’t afford for me to inherit. She’d keep trying to kill me—likely as collateral damage in the fight against the Daniels clan—until she succeeded.

If Kris hadn’t kidnapped me, would I be dead already? Had I been minutes away from a bullet to the brain, that day in her office?

I wasn’t sure enough of that to give him credit for saving my life, instead of nearly getting me killed. But I was sure that there was nowhere else in the city safer for me at that moment than with this band of heavily armed criminals—now that they’d decided not to kill me themselves.

But they would kill me in a heartbeat, if they found out I was the new head of the Tower syndicate.

Ten

Kris

On my way down from the upstairs bathroom, I glanced into the room that used to be mine and saw Sera staring at herself in the mirror. Just...staring.

“You okay?” I stopped in the doorway, hesitant to enter without permission, since a third strike would mean I was out. And whether or not I was ready to admit it, I very much wanted to be in.

She shrugged and met my gaze in the mirror. “I don’t know what one wears on a covert mission. Not that I have many options.” She held her arms out, inviting me to look. “Is this okay?”

“Waaay better than okay.” The black top and dark jeans were Kori’s, but Sera filled them out...better. So well, in fact, that I tried to forget they were my sister’s clothes. “Doesn’t matter, though. If this thing goes like we expect it to, it’ll be less about stealth than about speed and brute force.”

Still watching me in the mirror, she pulled her long brown hair into a high ponytail, and suddenly she looked eighteen years old. Young and vulnerable. Except for her eyes. The gaze that stared back at me in the mirror was ancient and war-wearied. Scarred. Which made a brutal kind of sense, now that I knew what had happened to her family.

She turned back to her own reflection. “So, what do you need me to do?”

“Just come with us.” I stepped into the room, and when she didn’t object, I took three more steps and half sat on the edge of the desk that had been mine a day and a half ago. “You don’t even have to pick up a gun.”

“In fact, we’re not gonna give you one.” My sister appeared in the doorway, and Sera turned to face us both. “Kris says you can’t shoot.”

“I said she can’t shoot yet. But I’ll teach her.”

Kori shrugged, arms crossed over her chest. “If you’re not planning to teach her in the next ten minutes, she’s not getting a gun.”

“Ten minutes?” Sera stepped into the boots she’d been wearing when I’d pulled her through the shadows in Tower’s supply closet, and I made a mental note to take her shopping. She deserved clothes of her own. And for my own comfort, I really needed to see her in something my sisters had never worn.

“Yeah. Kori says they have fewer employees on hand after 6:00 p.m.”

Sera’s eyes widened and she glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. My nightstand. “How did it get so late? I think I forgot to eat lunch.” Before I could offer her a snack, she sat on the bed to zip her boots and looked up at me. “Employees of what? Where are we going?”

“Well...” I glanced behind me, expecting Kori to answer, since she’d actually been where we were headed, but she was gone. “It’s a pharmaceutical company. Of sorts. Only you don’t want the kind of drugs they make.”

* * *

“Why does a pharmaceutical company have a darkroom?” Sera whispered, still holding my hand in the dark. Kori and Ian stood less than a foot in front of us. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them breathing. Hell, I could practically feel their body heat in the cramped quarters.

“The drugs produced here are very...special,” I whispered, fighting the urge to squeeze her hand, to run my thumb over the back of hers. Sera made me hungry for something I couldn’t define—couldn’t even understand—and each moment I spent with her made that craving worse.